Jakarta (11/17) – The 2025 G20 Summit will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 22-23, 2025. This year, the South African government has adopted the main theme of “Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainability” and reaffirmed inequality as a core agenda item for the G20.
The Civil 20 (C20) Indonesia coalition of civil society organizations is urging a strong role and leadership from the Indonesian government at the G20, with commitments to solidarity in alleviating foreign debt for South-South countries, a just energy transition, and reforms to global financial institutions. This call was delivered through a public discussion titled “Strengthening Indonesia’s Role in the G20 for a Fair and Balanced Global Order” on November 17, 2025, in Jakarta. In addition to civil society representatives, the event featured academics, media, and officials from Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs involved in the G20.
The world is currently overshadowed by a debt crisis. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that global government debt reached USD 102 trillion in 2024, up USD 5 trillion from 2023. Nominal debt in developing countries is rising twice as fast as in developed nations.
The high burden of debt servicing costs is a serious concern for civil society during the 2025 G20 Presidency. On October 14, 2025, INFID, along with 165 civil society organizations from various countries, sent a letter to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as the G20 2025 Presidency. The letter calls for concrete actions under South Africa’s leadership to address the worsening debt crisis in Southern countries, particularly in Africa.
Civil society highlights that developing countries are facing unsustainable debt burdens, the highest borrowing costs in two decades, and interest payments that are eroding budgets for health, education, and development. Although the G20 has established the Common Framework, its mechanisms are seen as slow, unfair, and inadequate for restoring fiscal sustainability.
As debt rises and accumulates, poverty reduction is slowing, discrimination against vulnerable groups, especially women, is increasing, and global inequality is widening. The World Bank (2025) reports that 831 million people worldwide still live on less than USD 3 per day, equivalent to about IDR 546,000 per month. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target of eradicating poverty by 2030 is at risk of failure.
Meanwhile, the current global financial system has deepened inequality in wealth distribution, which is concentrated in developed countries. In Indonesia, according to a report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD, 2023), the Comprehensive Wealth Index (CWI) grew at an average rate of 4.3% per year over the past 25 years. However, during the same period, real GDP per capita growth averaged only 2.8% per year. This indicates that Indonesia has not fully benefited from its increasing wealth. The global tax system still favors developed countries and the ultra-wealthy, failing to provide significant tax potential for developing nations.
Amid growing global competition for critical minerals and the need for financing energy transitions, the G20 has a strategic role in ensuring that the green industrialization agenda benefits not only developed countries but also provides space for developing nations like Indonesia to build domestic capacity, strengthen governance, and protect the rights of affected communities.
In the lead-up to COP30 in Belém and the G20 Summit in Johannesburg, climate change is a global issue that requires shared urgency, reflected in ambitious mitigation actions. The idea of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy is gaining traction (Down to Earth, 2025), and the world must accelerate the energy transition, especially for the G20, which accounted for 77% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2024 (UNEP, 2025).
Therefore, the C20 coalition is urging Indonesia’s leadership in the G20 to ensure the following key agendas.
First, clarify the G20’s commitment to debt cancellation for low- and middle-income countries. This requires expanding the coverage of the G20’s Common Framework for Debt Treatment and strengthening the joint framework to make it more predictable, timely, and coordinated. The G20 should also increase allocations of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and ensure their use focuses on poverty alleviation, a just energy transition, social development, and gender equality. Additionally, reforms are needed for credit rating agencies that are biased toward high-income countries’ interests.
Second, ensure structural reforms to international financial institutions, particularly the Bretton Woods institutions, to align with the development agendas of low- and middle-income countries. These reforms include strengthening the role of Southern countries, modernizing board structures, revising quota and voting rights rules, and easing access to resources without rigid quota-based formulas.
Third, ensure the G20’s commitment to strengthening industrial policies in low- and middle-income countries.
Fourth, urge the G20 to support reforms to the global tax system that are fairer and more representative by backing the UN tax convention process as a more inclusive forum. The G20 should also promote the implementation of wealth taxes as a concrete instrument for wealth redistribution and SDG financing.
Fifth, emphasize Indonesia’s leadership to ensure that G20 discussions on critical minerals do not solely secure the needs of developed countries but guarantee transparent and fair governance. The expansion of nickel, copper, and other critical minerals risks corruption, overlapping permits, and social-environmental impacts. Therefore, Indonesia should push the G20 to adopt supply chain transparency standards and open data on permits to enhance public accountability.
Sixth, affirm that the energy transition must be just, including gender-just, and avoid repeating the injustices of the extractive sector. Downstream processing and green energy investments must include protections for workers, women, affected communities, and the environment. Indonesia should encourage the G20 to expand renewable energy financing, ensure fair technology transfers, and center community rights and welfare in the global energy transition agenda.
Seventh, urge the G20 to champion climate and energy transition issues as key anchors for global green economic growth by leading by example. Indonesia’s submission of its Second Nationally Determined Contribution (SNDC) to the UNFCCC is not yet aligned with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree target, so updates to emission reduction goals are needed moving forward. High climate ambition serves as a strong diplomatic asset for Indonesia.
Eighth, encourage the G20 to translate the BALI COMPACT and Bali Energy Transition Roadmap from Indonesia’s 2022 G20 Presidency into tangible partnerships supporting three main components: 1) technology transfer, 2) financing, and 3) capacity building to accelerate emission reductions in the energy sector in line with the Paris Agreement.
Ninth, amplify or adopt formal decisions or non-formal initiatives from COP30 that support the acceleration of renewable energy and fossil fuel phase-out as part of the G20 agenda. One example is a “global fossil fuel phase-out roadmap.”
Contacts:
- Meliana Lumbantoruan, Deputy Director of PWYP Indonesia, meliana@pwypindonesia.org
- Siti Khoirun Ni’mah, Executive Director of INFID, snimah@infid.org
- Roby Rushandie, Research and Knowledge Manager, The PRAKARSA, rrushandie@theprakarsa.org
- Mieke Verawaty, Indonesian Women’s Coalition, mike@koalisiperempuan.or.id
- Irvan Tengku Harja, Researcher at The Habibie Center, irvan@habibiecenter.or.id
- Uliyasi Simanjuntak, Communications Manager, Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), uliyasi@iesr.or.id
About Civil 20 (C20):
C20 is the official engagement group of the G20, comprising civil society organizations from around the world, particularly G20 countries. The C20 Indonesia network was actively involved in Indonesia’s 2022 G20 Presidency, chaired at the time by the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID). For South Africa’s 2025 G20 Presidency, the active civil society coalition in C20 includes INFID, Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia, The Habibie Center, The PRAKARSA, Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), Indonesian Women’s Coalition (KPI), Kalyanamitra, and others.